The Tinfoil Hat Toolbox: 100-Plus Tips and Resources to Protect Your Site Network from the Google Borg

Google is one of the Internet's darlings, universally loved by just about everyone. Everyone, that is, but webmasters who've had their domain networks wiped from Google's results. Some sites deserve it and some don't, but the bottom line is that a Google hit doesn't have to be devastating. Read on to find out how you can segment your domain network so that Google can't take your entire portfolio down in one fell swoop.

Identity

Use these methods to segment and conceal your identity.

Keep separate ventures separate. Don't try to mash your cooking blog, Web-design site and photography business all into the same space. Create separate legal entities for each, and you'll not only be safe from Google, you'll also be more organized.

Don't list all of your domains together. Have you listed all of your domains on your résumé and put said résumé online where it can be found by Google? You've just handed over a cheat sheet. Don't make this blunder or a similar mistake — never list all of your domains in the same place.

Log out of Google. When visiting your own sites, make sure that you're logged out of Google services. It doesn't hurt to run through a few different proxies, either.

Domains and Private Registration

One of the easiest ways to connect your domain network is by checking out your WHOIS information. Here's how to muddy the waters.

Don't put your faith in fake registration data. Chances are, Google can see right through your fake registration, and you're making things harder on yourself by having to create separate accounts for different domains. This is also against ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) rules and can be grounds for losing your site.

Use different registrars. Break up your domain registrations among a handful of different registrars just to shake things up.

Redirect parked domains. To avoid looking like a spammer, send your inactive domains to active sites instead of filling them with link pages.

Separate your white-hat and black-hat sites. If some of your sites are a little more on the dark side than others, use different data for them than you do on your white-hat ones, or you may risk having them all connected.

Content

Stay under the radar and on Google's good side with these content strategies.

Always change content. Google will see straight through your work if all you're doing is scrambling a few words or hitting the thesaurus, so actually put some work into changing your content if it's the same across a few sites.

Make use of user feedback. One way to change up your content between similar Web sites is to encourage user feedback in the form of reviews, comments and forums.

Outsource content publishing. If you have enough domains to require lots of original content, just get someone else to do it. That is, unless you like functioning with no sleep.

Mix up your code. Don't copy and paste code from one site to another. Try to at least customize it in some way so that you cover your footprints.

Footprints

Cover your tracks with Google and beyond using these tips.

Uninstall the Google Toolbar. If you have the Google Toolbar installed on your machine, the company knows what sites you're visiting. Visiting your own sites over an over again could make it clear that you own a network of seemingly unconnected sites.

Consider using different IP addresses. When building tools like site maps with Google, the company can track your IP address and see that visits have all come from the same place. To combat this, you can take advantage of free wifi connections, which will serve up different IP addresses.

Use different PayPal accounts. If you use the same PayPal account or other monetary service on all of your sites, you've just made it easy for Google to follow the cash straight to you (and likely connect all of the sites that use it).

Profiles: Again, don't list connective accounts everywhere. This includes social networks like Facebook.

Use different social-media accounts. Are you submitting all of your posts and articles under the same username across different social media sites? You've just made it incredibly obvious that your sites are connected.

Break up your analytics. The same goes for Google Analytics. Use different accounts to track a few different sites.

Advertising

Pay close attention to how you advertise in order to stay under Google's radar.

Don't use AdSense. This tip will be painful for some, but the fact is that Google can connect you by following the flow of money.

Segment your affiliate IDs. Just about every affiliate program you join will assign an ID to you, so it will be perfectly clear which sites you own.

Use varied ad campaigns. Don't use the same ads and ad suppliers over and over again. Mix things up a little — it's good for testing the market anyway.

Hosting

Use these hosting strategies to break the connections between your sites.

Avoid using a dedicated IP address. Unless you're willing to get a few different dedicated IP addresses, avoid using just one or it will be a clear link between all of your sites.

Get on a shared IP address. Use a hosting company that will group your sites with others so that they'll be spread out among different IP addresses.

Link Buying/Building

Don't let your links provide a trail to all of the sites you own. Use these strategies to shake things up.

Be careful about linking between sites. If you have lots of links flying back and forth between otherwise unrelated domains, it will be pretty obvious that you're artifically building links with your own stock.

Use an alternative search engine. If you want to hide from Google, don't use the company's search engine. Check out alternative search engines like Clusty that serve up the same results with more privacy.

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